Language Disorders

Aphasia
Anomia
Agrammatism
Dyslexia

Language disorders are the disorders which involve the processing of linguistic information. The examples of language disorders include aphasia and development language disorder (DLD). There are types of language disorders - receptive language disorders and expressive language disorders. In the first, one cannot properly comprehend language, and in the other one cannot properly communicate their intended message. For receptive disorders the treatments include language therapy, special education classes for children and psycho. logical treatment. For expressive disorders, the treatments include speech pathologists and audiologists. There are various kinds of language disorders: aphasia, anomia, dyslexia, agrammatism, etc. Such types of language disorders can be discussed as follows.

1) Aphasia :

Aphasia is one of the language disorders. Every human being uses language. If because of brain damage, one cannot speak language properly, it is called aphasia. The word 'aphasia' has two elements 'a' and 'phasia'. 'A' mean (non/ negative) and 'phasia' means 'speak-ing'. So, aphasia means inability to speak. Aphasia is not similar to all people. The severity of aphasia depends on the location and the severity of brain damage. Apahsia may be caused by an accident, head trauma, brain tumours and brain infections.

There are certain types of aphasia. One of them is Broca's aphasia. It is the most common type of nonfluent aphasia.

It is named after Broca who discovered the area of the brain which is used to generate speech. It is caused by the damage which primarily affects the frontal lobe of the brain. People with Broca's aphasia may understand speech and may know what they want to say. However, they frequently speak in short phrases that are produced with great effort. They often utter small words such as 'the', 'and', 'is'. For example, a person with 'Broca's' aphasia may say "walk dog" which means "I will take the dog for a walk". As such people can understand what others speak, they are often aware of their difficulties and can become easily frustrated.

(i) Global Aphasia :

Another type of aphasia is global aphasia. It results from damage to extensive portions of the language area of the brain. Individuals with global aphasia have severe communication difficulties and have limited ability to speak or comprehend language. They may be unable to say a few words or may repeat the same words or phrases again and again. They often have difficulty in understanding even simple words or sentences. In some cases, people with global aphasia can communicate by using written language.

(ii) Wernicke's Aphasia :

Wernicke's Aphasia is named after the name of the person (Wernicke) who discovered the areas of the brain which are responsible for language comprehension located in the temporal lobe. People with Wernicke's aphasia cannot understand others, or even themselves when they speak. The speech of Wernicke's aphasia, however, is incomprehensible. Such people might learn that others can't understand them when they speak. So they may become angry and depressed.

(iii) Anomic Aphasia :

In this type of aphasia, the person is unable to supply the words for the very things he / she cannot produce significant nouns and verbs. The speech of the person is full of vague expressions of frustration. The person finds difficulty in finding words in writing as well as in speech.

(iv) Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) :

It is a condition, where language capabilities become slowly and progressively worse. It leads to the loss of ability to read, write and speak. However, other mental functions such as memory and reasoning are not usually affected. There is no cure for PPA. However, a person can still communicate effectively with the right tools, support and PPA support group.

(v) Conduction Aphasia :

There are certain other types of aphasia which result from damage to different language areas in the brain. One of them is Conductión Aphasia. Here people may have difficulty in repeating words and sentences even though they understand them and can speak fluently.

(vi) Anomic Aphasia II :

The person of this type, has difficulty in naming objects even though they know what the object is and what it may be used for.

After brain injury certain changes take place in the brain. They help to the recovery of the person and she / he can improve his language without any treatment. However, if the disorder remains, speech therapy is used as the treatment. Recent technologies have provided new tools for people with aphasia. Patients can participate in activities such as book clubs and art clubs. Family involvement is often a crucial component of aphasia treatment.

2) Anomia :

It is one of the types of Language disorders. It is also known as 'anomic aphasia"

'dysnomia' or 'amnesic aphasia'. It is a mild or fluent type of Aphasia. It is a brain disorder which makes it hard to remember the names of people or objects. It can be sometimes a symptom of a tumor or stroke. The word "anomia" is formed with two elements, 'a' which means 'non' or 'without' and 'nomen' which means 'name'.

People with 'anomia' often feel that they have words on the tip of their tongue. They may have problem with some trouble with nouns and verbs. They can still otherwise speak fluently and grammatically correct.

There are three types of anomia. One of them is 'word selection anomia'. In this case, the person knows how to use an object and can correctly select the target object from a group of objects and yet cannot name the object. The second is semantic anomia. In this disorder, the meaning of words becomes lost. The third type of anomia is disconnection anomia. Patients with it may show modality-specific anomia. Here, anomia is limited to specific sensory modality such as hearing.

Anomic aphasia may be caused by damage to anywhere in the left hemisphere. It can be genetic or caused by damage to various parts of the parietal lobe or the temporal lobe of the brain by an accident or stroke or a brain tumour.

Typical ways of the diagnosis of anomia, are developed now. The best way to see if it has developed is by using verbal and imaging tests. The combination seems to be most effective. Picture-naming tests also are utilized in diagnosing anomia. Analysis of picture-naming is compared with reading, picture categorizing and word categorizing. Anomic aphasia is also diagnosed by using the Aachan Apahsia Test (AAT) which tests language functioning after brain injury.

3) Dyslexia :

Dyslexia is one of the language disorders. It is also known as reading disorder. It is the learning disorder that affects a person's ability to read, spell, write and speak. Children who have it are often smart and hard-working. However, they have trouble connecting the letters, they see to the sounds those letters make. Adults also have such learning disorder. Kids with dylexia often have normal vision and are just as smart as their peers. But they struggle more in school because it takes them longer to read.

Dyslexia is believed to be caused by the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Some cases run in families. The child is more likely to have dyslexia if, his/ her parents or siblings have it. Dyslexia is different for everyone. Some people have a mild form that they eventually learn how to manage. Others have a little more trouble overcoming it.

There are certain types of dyslexia. They are as follows.

1.Prymary Dyslexia :

This is the most common type of dyslexia. It does not change with growing age. There is variability in the severity of the disability for individuals with this type of dyslexia. It is passed in family lines through genes. It is found more often in boys them in girls.

2. Secondary or Development Dyslexia :

This type of dyslexia is caused by problems with brain development during the early stages of fetal development. It diminishes as the child matures. It is also more common in boys.

3. Trauma Dyslexia :

This type of dyslexia usually occurs after some form of brain trauma. It is also caused by an injury to the area of the brain which controls reading and writing. It is rarely seen in today's school-age population.

4. Visual Dyslexia :

It is sometimes used to refer to visual processing disorder. It is a condition in which the brain does not properly interpret visual signals.

5. Auditory Dyslexia :

The term "auditory dyslexia is used to refer to auditory processing order. Similar to visual processing disorder, there are problems with the brain's processing of sounds and speech.

6. Dysgraphia :

Dysgraphia refers to the child's difficulty holding and controlling a pencil so that the correct markings can be made on the paper.

Dyslexia is a difficult disorder to diagnose. Various factors are reviewed to diagnose this disability, are standardised and are also considered as highly reliable.

4) Agrammatism :

‘Agrammatism' is one of the types of language disorders. It is a kind of aphasia. It can be defined as the pathological inability to use words in grammatical sequence. Agrammatism is associated with Broca's aphasia. Individuals with agrammatism present speech that is charac-terised by containing many content words, with a lack of function words. For example, a child may describe children playing in a garden as "trees..... children ..... run"

People with agrammatism may have telegraphic speech i.e. the speech without function words as it is done in a telegraph message. The patients of agrammatism commit errors in tense, number and gender.

One of the methods of the treatment of agrammatism is the sentence Production Pro-gramme for Aphasia (SPPA). The method aims to expand the repertoire of grammatical structure of sentences.